Sep 1, 2025
TL;DR
How to demonstrate Essential Eight compliance to clients
The Essential Eight is a widely adopted cybersecurity framework from the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), used as a baseline for securing systems.
It’s not legally required across the board, but effectively mandatory for Australian federal agencies and strongly recommended for critical infrastructure and private sector suppliers.
MSPs are expected to help clients implement, measure and report on the eight key controls – covering patching, backups, MFA, access control, and more.
enhanced.io enables MSPs to generate monthly Essential Eight maturity reports, showing control coverage, gaps and security progress across clients.
What is the Essential Eight and why does it matter?
The Essential Eight is a set of baseline security strategies developed by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). It is widely adopted across public and private sectors in Australia and New Zealand.
It’s not a legal requirement, but it’s increasingly seen as the default security benchmark.
Who needs to align with the Essential Eight?
Australian government departments
Critical infrastructure providers
Regulated financial and health sectors
Private sector businesses working with federal clients
MSPs serving these organisations are often tasked with helping implement and demonstrate maturity against the Essential Eight. Australian federal agencies are expected to meet Essential Eight maturity levels, making it effectively mandatory in practice for government.
What are the Essential Eight controls?
The controls are:
Application control
Patch applications
Configure Microsoft Office macros
User application hardening
Restrict administrative privileges
Patch operating systems
Multi-factor authentication
Daily backups
Each control has maturity levels from basic to advanced, and enhanced.io helps MSPs report on progress across these areas.
How enhanced.io supports Essential Eight maturity reporting
With enhanced.io, MSPs can:
Track and report on endpoint patching and access control
Demonstrate MFA and user privilege enforcement
Monitor security events and document incident response
Provide monthly compliance summaries across the eight pillars
This turns Essential Eight from a checkbox exercise into a measurable service.
What next?
Compliance is no longer optional for MSPs. It’s a core business function, a differentiator in competitive bids and a direct contributor to client trust. By embedding compliance reporting into your service offering with enhanced.io, you don’t just meet the standard – you set it.
Book a consultation and we’ll show you how.
